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Ever been working on somebody else’s code with their cruddy old custom string class and come across this?

Gee, thanks summary!

…only to drill down into the object to find more of this:

WHARGARBL?

Do you see my actual string there at the very bottom? Man… I’d really hate to have to do this every damned time I want to get at a string! Luckily, that empty summary box is not the final word in debugger previews. Instead you can use a handy little scripting language to create DATA FORMATTERS that will do the work for you. Check this out!

What's that?

….and then…

HOOOOOOOOO!

BAM! You win. By the way, in case you were wondering: The ‘:s’ gives you the summary field of the value you’ve drilled down to.

I’m sorry I abandoned you, Internet! I know I haven’t called or written lately, and I’m really sorry for that. I’ve been spending quite a bit of my off-hours time developing noncritical engine features for NYMPH, and haven’t really had much time to write on the ol’ blog.

I’ve got a couple ideas for posts kicking around that you may find interesting. Firstly I want to write about why the hell it’s so hard to turn a profit over here in Gameland while Techland over in the Valley seemingly has more money than it knows what to do with. I mean– I know we’re kind of commoditized as a field, but don’t we get a pass by sheer virtue of the fact that we’re in a creative industry? Evidently not.

Figured after all the time I’ve spent railing against unaccountable, disinterested corporations lately, I’d relate some good news, even if it isn’t mine.

A few days ago, my dad dropped his Kindle while going through airport security, breaking the screen. Pretty depressing situation, considering he had just recently purchased the thing.

Well it seems that Nissan could learn a couple lessons from Amazon– as they are now overnighting him a brand-new replacement, free of charge. He didn’t need to escalate the case to a manager, or beg and plead, nothing. He simply told a low-level CSR that he had dropped the kindle, and the CSR authorized a replacement.

I was sitting in the Chili’s at the Chicago-O’Hare airport when I got a call from a man named Luis. It was in response to my letter to the VP of Parts and Service. The general tone sounded somewhat promising at first, but gradually slid on a determined spiral into the inevitable rejection.

It was the part where he started going on about ‘obligation’ that really got to me though:

“Well I understand sir, and I sympathize– during the warranty period, Nissan is under obligation to correct such situations, but once the warranty has run out, Nissan is under no oblig–“

That’s when I cut him the fuck off. This is not about Obligation, nor has it ever been, as far as I’m concerned. This is about doing what’s right for your fucking customer, and I thought I’d been very clear on that point from the start. For God’s sake, a second-grader could figure out that Nissan doesn’t have to do jack shit to help me out. The warranty ran out. Case Closed.

This is about doing what’s right for your customer and about instilling a sense of trust into the person that’s about to hand over $10-20,000 to you. The fact that he used the “O-Word” twice in one sentence told me everything I needed to know. I told him I’d obviously made a mistake and thanked him for his time. That’s that.

It was fucking ridiculous. The guy just COULD NOT wait to get around me on Aviation Blvd, so he tries to zoom past right before the lane ends. There’s definitely a bit of ice on the roads, but I guess he thought he was just goddamn invincible in his bigshot quasi-SUV with AWD.

Either way, just as I was mouthing “you… fucking… idiot”, he loses control right in front of me and slides into the oncoming lane, he goes all the way 360, and tries desperately to get back over, while the oncoming car glides slowly into his front corner. CRUNCH.

Luckily all involved parties were able to slow down enough so that it was a pretty minor incident. Either way. You’re a moron dude.

Also some guy tried to turn DIRECTLY into my lane less than a mile from my house. It is very difficult to swerve out of the way quickly when there’s ice on the roads, but I managed it.

That is all.

—

EDIT: Okay I lied, that’s not actually all; It is worth mentioning that I-40 was remarkably well-behaved. Everybody putzed along at a reasonable speed, no congestion, no accidents. Plenty of cars littering the ditch though– Maybe they served as an effective enough caution to other would-be daredevils?